Skull has only caught of glimpse of the world of Nye when he met one of its kingdom's commanders - Carter - in an interdimensional scheme. But that isn't the end of it. Now, he's been thrown in headfirst into the drama, but unfortunately, he hasn't happened upon a very friendly scene.
James didn't like to consider himself a man who was easily shaken. It had been almost a year since he'd been on the run, heading north as if his life depended on it (because it very well did). He'd had plenty of run-ins and close calls. He'd been shot at, injured, caught, and thrown around, and none of it seemed to phase him. He felt like he'd taken it all in stride as he continued to hurry as far away from the Moonlight Kingdom as he could take himself on the map.
But Butch was not like the previous bounty hunters he'd encountered.
He was familiar with the persistent perseverance of the men and women set on his capture, and he knew the number on his head was the thing that kept them coming. Money drove people to do all sorts of things, and he wasn't surprised that it led people to hunt other humans "in the name of the law."
Butch, however, didn't seem as interested in the money. It was clear that he'd made a business in hunting criminals and took pride in it not because it was honorable, but because he enjoyed it.
He could see it in his eyes.
They were in a shed. It was dark, apart from the roaring fireplace in front of him that cast sharp shadows across the barren room. James had every limb strapped to the arms and the legs of a small, wooden chair, and he felt that at any moment, the legs would snap underneath his weight. He was gagged with a sock in his mouth, and a bandana secured tightly between his teeth for good measure. With that alone, his breathing felt shallow.
Sitting across from him on a stool was a man with dark skin and dark hair that grew to his shoulders. He cupped his bearded chin with one hand and spun a knife around in the other, letting it dance between his fingers. He looked like he might be from the isles, but it had to have been a long time since he'd seen the sea for him to be this far up north. He looked about James's size, but a bit taller. Possible to overpower, but not like this. Not while James was bound.
At the other side of the shed, in the corner, another man was sitting on crate. He had pale skin and didn't look like a fighter. He was built like someone who worked indoors. Someone who hadn't worked with his hands except to perhaps, stitch things up. James felt like he already understood the man's role. He was the medic, and his eyes were glued to the floor.
That would explain why James's leg was bandaged. Before he'd come to in the cabin, he remembered stumbling through the forest, his leg gushing blood as he limped through the rain and the mud. He'd slipped. He'd hit his head.
That was how Butch had caught up to him.
A shudder ran down his spine as the bounty hunter emerged from behind a stack of crates, walking towards the fire.
Butch stood at least a foot taller than him, and he was broad and massive. He was a cross between an ox and a tree, and it felt like he filled up the whole room with his presence.
James's eyes flicked to the fire. At first, he thought Butch was stoking it, but then he realized Butch wasn't poking at the fire - he was pulling a metal rod out of it.
At the end of the rod was a brand. The metal curved and turned to form a sharp-edged "B" with a circle around it. James felt a wave of nausea wash over him and his eyes grew wider as he stared at the glowing iron symbol hovering over the flames. No. No. Surely, Butch wasn't so cruel as to treat his bounties like cattle.
James felt his heart beating hard in his chest. He started to wriggle and pull at his restraints. Someone in the room had to fight. Butch couldn't just get away with this.
Butch turned his head back towards James as the chair beneath him creaked under his struggling. Butch's mouth upturned into a sickening grin, making the man's underbite more prominent.
The light from the fire cast half of Butch's face into shadow, but when Butch and James locked eyes, James felt his body, involuntarily, begin to tremble.
With a swift movement, Butch drew the brand out of the fire and marched behind James. The chair tilted forward. James felt Butch push up the bottom of his shirt, exposing his lower back. He didn't know if the chill he felt was from the night air against his skin or the fear.
"It's just tradition," Butch began to say casually, like one would discuss the weather. "So that when I bring you in, they know it was me who caught you."
James whimpered, but it was barely heard through the gag in his mouth.
"Here's to the mark of a man who is no longer free," Butch said. James might've understood that Butch was saying it to the other men in the room in the same way one might raise a glass for a toast, but he was staring into the fire. The room felt hot, and he couldn't breathe, and his heart was pounding.
And then scalding metal met flesh, and he bit down on the gag as he screamed.
An hour into my day and it was already going horribly.
The morning had started pretty well. I was going to pull off a scheme I had come up with a long time ago - I'd prank Natty boy by making him think he was in sleep paralysis from a ghost. He would be, technically, considering that yours truly used to be one. Asmira would dim the lights and make the room cool, while I'd possess Nathaniel and keep him from moving.
I had tried it once before, but it hadn't worked out. That time, I had been whisked off to my future friend Nikko's world and been stuck in a mannequin until we tracked down my body. That probably should have been a sign that the universe didn't want me to prank him, but I had been stupidly optimistic.
Just as I was supposed to switch from my body to his, I suddenly found myself somewhere else. I was getting a feeling of déjà vu that I didn't like in the slightest. The place I was in was some dark cabin. I wasn't alone this time, though - there was an absolutely massive guy nearby, some guy in front of a fire, and a guy staring down at the floor like he didn't want a part in any of this. I was inclined to feel the same way.
Even before I heard the voice in the back of my head, I knew I was possessing someone else. My body felt off, and no one here seemed to question why I was oh so casually sitting on a stool. The man I currently was didn't seem to mind whatever was about to happen from the way he was sitting. He also didn't seem to realize I was there yet; he was just confused about why it was suddenly so hard to move his muscles.
I leaned forward a little, cupping my now bearded chin in my hand and spinning the knife in my hands around absentmindedly. That seemed like the right thing to do; no one asked what I was doing.
Hi there, I said in my head.
The man, understandably, was a little confused about why a complete stranger was talking to him in his mind.
I'm just going to be borrowing your body for a little bit, I said, so don't try to fight it. If you do try to fight it, or don't answer my questions, I'll make it permanent. Got it?
The man did. No one liked to lose control of their own body.
Good, I said. Now, I want you to tell me everything about what's going on right now.
A short time later, I had my explanation. The big man was Butch; he was the leader of this little trio. Oliver was the doctor sitting on the crate, and I was currently possessing a guy named Reed - whose specialty was torturing. The last member of our group wasn't really a member; he was a wanted man, and these were his bounty hunters. His name was technically Tiberius, but he had been going by the name Rook when he had been caught. Tiberius was wanted alive, but Butch liked it better when his quarry could be killed. That was why they had a doctor around - if he or Reed went a little too far dealing punishment to Tiberius, they wanted someone to fix him up.
Great.
Just as the explanation came to a close, I saw that Butch had retrieved a metal rod from the depths of the fire. I didn't have a chance to protest - not that I could have. Reed wouldn't have. He had signed up for this; he knew exactly what Butch liked to do to his prey.
Tiberius whimpered a little bit through his gag. I pretended like I didn't hear it.
"Here's to the mark of a man who is no longer free," Butch said.
I gave the kind of smile that Reed would have given, trying my best not to meet Tiberius's eyes. He was thankfully staring into the fire as Butch moved the brand towards him. Every inch of me was screaming to do something, but I knew I couldn't. If I hopped out of Reed and into Butch, Reed could get me. Stay as Reed, and Butch could get me. Oliver might have helped, but he'd be useless - as well as Tiberius, if I got him free.
Tiberius screamed as the scalding metal touched his bare skin.
James felt like he could vomit. Tears stung his eyes and his eyes lost focus as Butch pulled the brand away and rested it on the hearth. The chair clattered back on the floor and James found himself breathing too quickly, and too shallow. The conversation shared between his captors felt like it was disproportionately loud and boomed in his ears.
“Ollie, make sure he doesn’t shit himself or something,” Butch ordered dismissively.
Oliver, from the corner of the room sent Butch a cold look, but quickly concealed it with indifference.
“He’s more likely to pass out,” the doctor said quietly.
“As long as he doesn’t die on us, we’re fine,” Butch retorted in the same dismissive manner. The large man crabbed a crate off the wall and scraped it across the wooden floor up next to the bearded man before sitting down.
“We’ll head out in the morning,” he said, his voice gruff and deep. “You can have some fun with him before then,” he said, glancing over to the man on the stool.
Butch’s words were ringing through his head as “Ollie” kneeled in front of him. The pale man’s fingers reached to James’s neck, under his jaw, and James flinched at the contact, his cheek twitching. Ollie’s fingers were so cold. The medic’s other hand met James’s forehead, which was wet with sweat.
He heard the medic sigh, before grabbing the back of the chair and dragging James back and away from the fire. The smothering blanket of heat receded, but the skin on his back still burned and stung like it was still in flames. The medic went around him and said nothing as he looked at his back.
“I want it to heal nicely,” Butch said from across the room.
Ollie was quiet. James was still trembling, now staring at the floor.
“It’ll heal,” was all the medic said as he got up and grabbed something from the other side of the room. James didn’t turn to look.
All he knew was that in a few seconds, he felt a cool cloth rest over his lower back, and he wasn’t sure if it was hurting or helping. He bit down on the gag again, smothering any noise that would escape him this time.
I got to my feet and walked over to where Tiberius was staring at the floor.
Oliver - or Ollie, apparently - was tending to Butch's victim with a wet cloth. I didn't want to imagine how much it had to hurt, or what Tiberius had to be thinking. Whatever it was, I knew it would probably be directed towards me in a minute. I had a role I needed to fulfill. I didn't want to hurt Tiberius. That just seemed like overkill, and I honestly would rather hurt Butch. But I couldn't let anyone suspect the truth about who was in control right now.
I'd get Tiberius free eventually.
He just had to hold out until I figured out a good plan.
Now that I was in front of him, I could feel the doctor's eyes on me. If only he knew I wasn't really Reed - we might have been on the same side. For now, though, I was Butch's little subordinate.
I crouched down in front of Tiberius, reaching out with one hand and tilting his head back like some terrible cliche. Realizing that the knife in my hand probably had a purpose, I traced the uninjured areas of Tiberius's skin with it - some of his arm, his face. I never pushed hard enough to leave a scar. I'd have to torture him, eventually, but I wasn't going to just this moment.
I was taking a leaf from Butch's book. Butch had branded him like cattle. I was going to act like that was what he was - Reed wouldn't see him as a person. I was eying him up right now, trying to figure out just the right place to cut into his flesh. Not that it was really much of a lie. I was. What I actually was trying to find was a place where it wouldn't hurt as much, and where it would heal easier. Finding a place that would give an extra show of blood would be nice, too - I wanted Butch to be convinced I was doing Reed's job well.
I looked away from Tiberius with a cold smile on my face and got to my feet.
James knew at one point he was conscious, and at one point he was not, but he couldn’t remember closing his eyes to rest. His eyes shot open when he felt a freezing cold cloth press up against his lower back, and he felt his body throw itself back into trembling shivers again against his will.
It was morning, and he awoke to new pains and new wounds. His arms and chest were wrapped tightly in bandages, and he felt a stiff paste on his jaw. His memory came back in flashes from the previous night - Reed, his appointed torturer, slicing him slowly and carefully, taking his time as he drew so much blood.
He couldn’t remember much after his vision went red. Was he really that weak? A few cuts did him in? He didn’t know, but he did know that everything hurt much more than it did the day before.
He was sitting on the porch, but this time, his hands were cuffed behind his back, not tied to a chair. His ankles were bound together by knots of thick rope. Butch and Reed were packing up three horses, and Butch’s two, giant dogs were following his every move.
Ollie put his hand on James’s shoulder as he pressed the cold cloth a little harder against his back. James took in a shuddering inhale.
“Don’t let them see you cry,” Ollie whispered.
James wished he could see Oliver’s face. He wanted his gaze to burn through Oliver’s skull. How dare you, he shouted in his mind. How dare you.
Not that I had expected to. My sleep was normally questionable, but I had just spent a night torturing a guy. I wasn't going to be having pleasant dreams for a long time. Tiberius hadn't waited too long to pass out; I tried to tell myself that was a good thing. If he was unconscious, Butch couldn't ask me to continue torturing him.
Now I was trying to fight off my drowsiness as I helped Butch pack up our horses. I didn't know how to ride a horse, but I knew Reed's muscles - and voice - would guide me through it.
As I secured one of the packs, I moved so I could get a good look at Tiberius. It seemed like he was up again. Oliver was talking to him, probably trying to offer words of comfort. I doubted they would do much. Oliver was just as complacent as I was in all of this, even if he hadn't taken a knife to Tiberius's flesh last night.
For a moment, I made eye contact with Tiberius. I wished there was some way I could convey I was on his side, but I knew I couldn't with the doctor right next to him. I gave a smirk - more my own than Reed's - and finished up packing the horse.
Butch patted his massive draft horse’s back before walking back behind the shed. The two dogs, of course, followed behind, panting happily as they bounced around him.
It was a stark contrast to when they’d been barking viciously when tracking James down.
James wearily slouched his head forward as Oliver started to wrap the burn wound. James snapped his eyes shut and grit his teeth as the bandaging made contact with his raw skin. He didn’t miss the gag from last night, but he almost wished for it to give him something to bite down on to distract from the pain.
Oliver then lifted James up from the chair and led him down the steps slowly. James was hopping, of course, but his body felt ridiculously unbalance and his head started spinning again once he was upright. Oliver didn’t even make it all the way down the steps before Butch rounded the corner of the cabin, leading Elliot.
James felt his heart stop in panic and relief. Elliot was okay, but Elliot was also in the hands of his captor.
“The hell are you doing, doc?” Butch asked, leaving Elliot to march over. James stiffened. “And why’d you take the gag off?”
“He hasn’t spoken since we caught him, you know,” Oliver explained. “And I doubt a scream in the middle of the forest will make people want to come near.”
Butch took a step closer, standing less than a foot away from the doctor.
“Better not,” he muttered, as his large meaty hands reached around James’s waist. Butch hoisted James over his back, but in the process, pressed his fingers over the burn wound and flipped James’s head upside-down. James felt all of the blood rush to his head and he let out a faint moan.
“Be careful!” Oliver chided. “He’s barely stable!”
Butch just grunted as he carried james over to Elliot and threw him over Elliot’s saddle.
“Looks alive to me.”
“You asked me to lend my skill. All I’m doing is-“
“Yeah, yeah, okay. You tie him up on the horse then and make sure he doesn’t fade to dust.”
James was seeing spots. His only comfort was that he was on Elliot. He clung to that fact like a raft in an ocean of pain and discomfort.
Oliver grumbled something James couldn’t make out, but he was soon helped to be made upright atop his own horse, just strapped to the saddle with rope upon rope. He kept telling himself it could be worse, but he couldn’t imagine what worse would be.
I wanted to intervene, but I held my tongue and waited for Oliver to start tying Tiberius to one of the horses before I went to his side. I didn't say anything at first. I didn't know what to say. But I wanted to keep an eye on Tiberius. If I was lucky, Butch would notice how good I was with him and would let me have some alone time with Tiberius.
Then we could escape.
"Let me do it," I roughly said, taking the rope from Oliver's hands. The doctor took a step back, understandably wary. He apparently didn't have experience with tying people up. Me, on the other hand? I could have probably done it with my eyes closed.
Once Tiberius was secured, I gave one of his uninjured areas a little pat before heading over to the horse Reed said I should go to. It wasn’t long before we were leaving behind the cabin, heading into an unknown I knew close to nothing about.
The night air wrapped him like a cold blanket as he burned underneath, pain and fever causing sweat to drip down the back of his neck, down his back. His body ached from malnourishment and mistreatment, all amidst the discomfort of being tied to the tree, with his arms above his head, feet barely touching the ground, like a sack of meat.
Out of the corner of his eye, he closely watched his captors sleeping. There was Butch, the bounty hunter whose massive chest rose and fell far too peacefully for a man filled with so much wrath. And then there was Reed, the one who happily caused him so much pain.
The two of them laid on the ground with their blankets wrapped snugly around them. The fire had died, and their frames were only silhouetted shapes in the night.
It was the worst night to try and escape. Without the fire, the forest was a formless, black void; a labyrinth of darkness that he could just as easily get lost in as caught in. But it was the first of seven long nights that Butch finally trusted Oliver to keep watch for at night.
Day after day, the medic looked away as Butch and Reed made his waking hours a nightmare, and Oliver cleaned him afterward just like he was told. "Your job is to keep him alive," Butch would tell him, like it were a joke, that James's life had value to anyone apart from a number of gold and silver.
And then obediently, Oliver would bow his head and tend to James's wounds but never meet his eyes. Though the medic could bear the aftermath, it was clear that he did not share the others' morbid fascination of toying with their bounty before delivery.
But the days were running together, and he knew it was only a day or two before they'd reach the kingdom borders. If he wanted to escape he had to do it now. All he had to do was pull on the medic's weak stomach. All he had to do was look pitiful enough and work up enough tears to draw Oliver close.
He shifted in the darkness, watching as Oliver’s head turned towards him. He had Oliver’s attention.
"M-my leg," James whimpered as he held back a sob. "Please."
Oliver’s face fell to his bound up legs and the ax-length bandaging below his left knee. And he knew he had won.
Regret. Pity. Sympathy. All of it made itself known on the medic's face as he loosed James's bonds, freeing up his legs.
And that was when James swung up his leg and watched with a giddy, adrenaline-filled delirious relief as the medic fell with a thud to the ground. He hoisted himself up, using the tension of the rope holding his hands above his head to lift himself to his feet and give Oliver another kick to the skull for good measure.
Everything in his physical frame was screaming at him to stop moving, but he couldn’t stop if he wanted to break free. With gritted teeth he pulled one hand through the cuffs, dislocating his thumb in the process, and used his free hand to untie the rope from his cuffs.
It was then that the dogs began to stir.
James wasted no time as he ran to Elliot, leaped into the saddle, and sent him galloping into the forest. The moment he mounted Elliot he heard the dogs get up and start barking. He didn’t look back as he held on for dear life, devoting all of his energy to trying to navigate the nearly pitch-black forest.
I had spent a week waiting for the perfect opportunity to escape with Tiberius, and I still hadn't gotten it. Seven nights in, and it was Oliver's turn to keep watch. Even though I wasn't supposed to be, I couldn't fall asleep. I was still very much awake - though I pretended not to be - when Tiberius took advantage of the medic.
It looked like I wasn't going to be escaping with him after all.
Still, Tiberius was free. I made sure to take my time "waking up" when the dogs started barking, hoping that my hesitation gave Tiberius just enough time to get away.
Oliver was unconscious on the ground. Butch was getting up now. Reed was groggy in the back of my head; with everything else that had happened to him in the past week, he wasn't too concerned with Tiberius getting away. He was more concerned with me sticking around still.
Oooh, Butch was angry. He figured things out pretty quickly, even before he kicked Oliver awake. I had a sneaking suspicion that he had caught onto what the doctor had accidentally done, and that suspicion was confirmed when he leveled a bullet right through Oliver's head.
The doctor fell, dead, to the ground.
...If we found Tiberius any time soon, I had a feeling he'd join him.
Butch got ready to go. He was still angry, but he didn't have anyone to be angry towards now that the doctor was gone. I did everything that he requested - I got onto one of the horses and went rushing into the forest after Tiberius with him. We wouldn't catch up. Tiberius had the head start.
So I didn't try to. I kept track of exactly where we were. Butch would give up, soon. He wouldn't want to, but he would have no other choice. I'd pretend Reed was tired of dealing with this, and that he thought it was all too much effort to go searching the woods for Tiberius. I'd sneak back right to where the doctor was laying dead on the ground, switch to Oliver's corpse, and tie up Reed's body next to a tree for some random traveler to find.
And then I'd get to work on my main goal: finding my own body.
I just hoped I had one to go back to after a week.
The sun was up. James had forced himself to stop and pushed through all of the aches and pains as he made sure Elliot got water, was fed, and brushed down. If Elliot was content, that was one less thing to worry about, and he could relax.
Elliot was tied to a tree, but he was grazing peacefully. His saddle was on the ground, along with everything else Butch had tacked onto it. James didn’t even feel like beginning to dig into things. He just looked for the first canteen of water he could find and drank, and drank, and drank. His stomach had been empty for days, and he knew better than to shove just any food into his system, but he needed something.
He was just too tired to figure out what that something was.
James finished off the water and found a patch of grass beside Elliot where he laid down for the first time in a whole week. He felt his back pop a few times, each adjustment feeling like it was resetting his spine. His muscles started to relax, and he permitted himself to let out a pained wheeze. There was no one there to hear. And no one was around to care if he cried a little either. Besides Elliot, of course, but Elliot had seen and heard such things before.
Just like I guessed, Tiberius was nowhere to be found.
I said my goodbyes. It was clear Butch wouldn't miss me; I certainly wouldn't be missing him. I took the horse all the way back to where we had left the doctor's body. It took some time, of course, but it was still in a decent condition.
Then I got to work.
I raided the supplies that were left over, picking what I thought I would need the most. I took everything that Reed had owned. I needed it more than him, and I didn't mind the thought of him suffering a bit.
Then I got to work tidying up the doctor's body.
If I was going to be possessing it, I'd have to make the corpse look a little more presentable. I washed the blood off of his face and out of his hair. Butch, of course, had shot him right through the eye, so I had to get a little creative. I grabbed some cloth and wrapped it around injured eye to hide just how badly it was hurt.
For good measure, I changed his shirt into one of Reed's - I didn't want even the slightest blood stain.
I dragged the doctor's body over to a tree, left some rope right in front of it, and switched bodies. All it took was a well-placed whack to the back of the head, and Reed was unconscious.
I tied him up, then set off into the woods.
I wasn't sure how long I had been traveling for. Butch had spent most of the night leading me around in search of Tiberius; it had just barely been dawn when I returned to Oliver's body. The sun was actually up now, and it felt annoying hot on the back of my neck. Thankfully, I had possessed Oliver before his corpse had sat out in the sun. It would have been all too obvious that he was dead to anyone I ran across.
Speaking of which, I needed to stretch my legs a bit. I could see a clearing coming up in the distance. Getting off my horse - who I had dubbed Tony for now - I dug through the packs on his back. Reed didn't have a lot, save for a miscellaneous assortment of weapons/torture devices I had tried my best to avoid in the past week.
What he did have was a map. I studied it as I led Tony through the trees, trying my best to make sense of the unfamiliar shapes. I could barely read the words on the paper, so I'd have to guess based on terrain.
I was so busy studying it that I didn't notice I wasn't the only one who had decided to stop in the clearing. I came to a stop a few feet into it, tilting my head to the side and frowning. If only the doctor had still been alive - I could have asked him for pointers.
James didn't fall asleep. The persistent stinging on his back, among other things, made sure of that. He heard the sound of a horse riding through the trees and forced himself to his feet, already scrambling for the saddle.
He didn't want to put the saddle on Elliot again so soon, but it was better to get away alive and a little tired than end up dead.
But when he saw who it was coming through the trees, he hesitated.
It was Oliver, with a bandage over half his face, covering one eye. He assumed that had been at least part of Oliver's punishment for aiding in his escape, but his immediate suspicion was that Oliver had been sent as a distraction while the others closed in. He started to lift up the saddle, ignoring every aching, screaming muscle that begged for rest.
When the other occupant of the clearing lifted the saddle up, I finally realized I hadn't been the only one to find the clearing convenient. My dead heart skipped a beat - if it was Butch, I was screwed.
But when I slowly lowered the map and straightened, I saw a person that I was just as unhappy to see: Tiberius. He was in the middle of raising his saddle onto his horse's back. He probably thought I had come to catch him, even though I had been more concentrated on the map than on him a few moments ago.
"...Have you even rested?" I asked, more than a little hypocritically. I hadn't. "You must have been going all night."
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